Saturday, October 16, 2010

When pregnant or raising a newborn, a lot of people try to warn you about things. Things such as "You will never sleep again!" or "Just wait until they're 2!" Etc. etc.

However, people don't warn you about a lot of things I wish I had known.

Recently I discovered a new issue no one has ever warned us about - disgusting neck smell.

Lately, Baby D's neck has taken on the stench of mummified poop. It's embarrassing. We noticed it the other night after day care, and were mortified that the people looking after Baby D have probably been talking about how gross she smells. She had just been bathed, too! And we specifically got into her neck folds. It wasn't good enough, though, because this disgusting neck smell returns almost immediately.

We washed her neck out really well after noticing the stench. Then Mr. D's mom came to babysit the other night and gave Baby D another bath because she said her neck smelled really bad. I couldn't believe it.

After some googling, I discovered we are most definitely not alone in this problem and have found some ways to help ease the stench. It's believed to be caused by milk and saliva dribbling down into the deep crevices of a baby's non-existent neck. We're trying to wipe her neck down after every feeding now, and I'm putting baby powder in her cavernous neck folds in an attempt to keep them dry and smell-free. I think it's working so far.

We could start giving her more baths, but she already has really really dry skin so I don't want to resort to bathing her every day. But I'm still embarrassed that her day care teachers probably noticed the smell. I'm here to tell you all that if your baby has this horrible stench emanating from their neck, they are not alone.

2 comments:

  1. I am so glad you posted this! We have started referring to Jackson's as "gunky neck". Not only is the smell gross, but he has little bits of fuzz and hair caught in there. Ew. I assumed it was because he is just so chubby that it gets caught in the layers, but I do bathe him every other night! I have started having to wipe it out with baby wipes several times a day, which annoys him but it needs to be done. I think I will warn any pregnant woman I meet about gunky neck, they deserve to know.

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  2. hahaha, I LOVE this post. Can't believe I never wrote about this myself. I call it "cheesy neck"...its smells like bad cheese to me.

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